k1j2b3:MacEnvy: So all the GOP needs to do to win is "black it up" a little? You morons, this is why you will continue to lose. You honestly think it's about race and not about policy. You epic failures of human beings.

No, we need to choose candidates like Dr. Carson, who can clearly state the conservative position and give simple, thought-provoking solutions to our problems. Also, I love how he pointed out how political correctness keeps good ideas out of the mix.

I am looking for a smart candidate with the ability to explain conservative ideas to Americans in plain English. I couldn't care less if he was white, black, hispanic or asian. Dr. Carson was a breath of fresh air.

I'm in my mid-20's and even I don't have one because I'd rather have comprehensive insurance instead of taking a chance and having to pay out of pocket for my medical expenses if something bad were to happen to me.

But this guy's plan is worse.Inheritable HSA's? I mean.... what the holy fark. Let's just drop the pretense that this is anything else but a way for the wealthy to further segregate themselves from those wretched poors.

But he said the best way to do that was with HSA's that could be passed on via inheritance, and that the government would still pay for the indigent. That sounds worse than what we already have. We need to get the free market as far away from healthcare as possible.

You know I usually agree with at least SOMETHING the right has to say. There wasn't a thing in that article that I didn't cringe at the small possibility of happening.

"We can make contributions for people who are indigent," Carson said. "Instead of sending all this money to some bureaucracy, let's put it in their HSAs. Now they have some control over their own health care. And very quickly they're going to learn how to be responsible."

Stood right the fark out. Health care isn't like budgeting or deciding when you can afford a new car. No one sits around, has a family meeting and says 'well now, little billy broke his arm this year, and I fell off a ladder and needed that expensive back surgery, so mom is just going to have to wait until next year to that those chemo treatments for her cancer'.

"Instead of sending all this money to some bureaucracy, let's put it in their HSAs. Now they have some control over their own health care. And very quickly they're going to learn how to be responsible."

People will just choose not to get sick, and certainly not to develop long term chronic illnesses that require years of expensive care.

k1j2b3:MacEnvy: So all the GOP needs to do to win is "black it up" a little? You morons, this is why you will continue to lose. You honestly think it's about race and not about policy. You epic failures of human beings.

No, we need to choose candidates like Dr. Carson, who can clearly state the conservative position and give simple, thought-provoking solutions to our problems. Also, I love how he pointed out how political correctness keeps good ideas out of the mix.

I am looking for a smart candidate with the ability to explain conservative ideas to Americans in plain English. I couldn't care less if he was white, black, hispanic or asian. Dr. Carson was a breath of fresh air.

They're utterly irrelevant. They're a way to control the costs of sniffle-n-backache vists (by making generally healthy people avoid going to the doctor for anything). Sadly, all the cases where HSAs/HDHPs have much effect add up to a rounding error in the 80% of health spending that's on cancer, heart attacks, strokes, major trauma, and end-stage kidney/cardio-pulmonary/etc. Things that are 'catastrophes' even with deductibles of $10,000 or more.

But he said the best way to do that was with HSA's that could be passed on via inheritance, and that the government would still pay for the indigent. That sounds worse than what we already have. We need to get the free market as far away from healthcare as possible.

HSA's are worthless.

I'm in my mid-20's and even I don't have one because I'd rather have comprehensive insurance instead of taking a chance and having to pay out of pocket for my medical expenses if something bad were to happen to me.

Get a less expensive high-deductible plan and put the money you save into the HSA. Then if you have a good year where you don't get sick or see a dr more than a time or two, you're way ahead.

Carson told Sean Hannity on Fox News, "If the Lord grabbed me by the collar and made me do it, I would. It's not my intention."

Ahhhh, gotta love that good 'ol fashioned feigned humility.

MacEnvy:So all the GOP needs to do to win is "black it up" a little? You morons, this is why you will continue to lose. You honestly think it's about race and not about policy. You epic failures of human beings.

Annnnd THIS.

Likewise the GOP has a problem with the latino vote... so their solution is to make some noise about fixing our illegal/legal immigration mess with confidence that's going to get the latino votes. They don't even realize how condescending that sounds or how incomplete it is. They can only insist so many times that they're not racist before the denials start wearing thin - and that time was some time ago.

This is America. Theoretically, anyone's got a chance. Let him run. I don't think he'll get past the primaries, but who knows? Give it a shot.

[checks Wiki....]

Oh shiat....he's a Seventh-Day Adventist? Good luck with that. I would be very very surprised if he gets the Fundie nod. Then again, then held their noses for Romney and Joseph Smith. They might hold their nose for Carson and Ellen G. White.

Seems he went in to medicine because he's a complete retard on domestic policy.

"Instead of sending all this money to some bureaucracy, let's put it in their HSAs. Now they have some control over their own health care. And very quickly they're going to learn how to be responsible."

No, they'll learn what a con medical pricing is and their HSA will be wiped out by one trip to the doctor.

Anyone advocating HSA's as some magic responsibility creating vehicle just isn't very smart about people. Plus there are the optics of "my plan revolves around the idea that people need tax relief to afford Advil, and they should be happy with that" to consider.

But he said the best way to do that was with HSA's that could be passed on via inheritance, and that the government would still pay for the indigent. That sounds worse than what we already have. We need to get the free market as far away from healthcare as possible.

HSA's are worthless.

I'm in my mid-20's and even I don't have one because I'd rather have comprehensive insurance instead of taking a chance and having to pay out of pocket for my medical expenses if something bad were to happen to me.

Get a less expensive high-deductible plan and put the money you save into the HSA. Then if you have a good year where you don't get sick or see a dr more than a time or two, you're way ahead.

Sergeant Grumbles:But this guy's plan is worse.Inheritable HSA's? I mean.... what the holy fark. Let's just drop the pretense that this is anything else but a way for the wealthy to further segregate themselves from those wretched poors.

It's a terrible idea for several reasons:

1. Doesn't do anything to require people to have healthcare. Half the population can't go without raiding their 401(k)s to buy flat-screen t.v.s and iPhones. What makes anybody think that the low-income people won't fund/borrow from (if possible) their HSAs, and choose to go without health insurance ... the same way they do now.

2. What steps are in place to make sure that insurance companies are offering coverage that will be affordable for those who have no resources other than the government subsidy? If the subsidy doesn't cover the cost of coverage, what good is it? If it does, but there's only one available option, how is that any different than the current Medicaid model?

3. "Personal responsibility" when it comes to healthcare is a largely bullshiat idea. If you give them the ability not to have insurance, some won't, whether it's out of income difficulties, disinterest, ennui, or whatever. But they'll still get sick/hurt anyway, and show up at the emergency room, just as they do now. Are we going to turn them away now because they've made bad choices to not have insurance that might have otherwise been available to them? How is this system really any different than what we have now, except that we're diverting more taxpayer dollars into private insurance companies?

Did someone in the GOP heirarchy just say "goddammit, people. Find me a black. But not an idiot like Herman Cain"? I just feel like this guy is being toured around because he let someone check off a line of boxes.

But he said the best way to do that was with HSA's that could be passed on via inheritance, and that the government would still pay for the indigent. That sounds worse than what we already have. We need to get the free market as far away from healthcare as possible.

HSA's are worthless.

I'm in my mid-20's and even I don't have one because I'd rather have comprehensive insurance instead of taking a chance and having to pay out of pocket for my medical expenses if something bad were to happen to me.

Get a less expensive high-deductible plan and put the money you save into the HSA. Then if you have a good year where you don't get sick or see a dr more than a time or two, you're way ahead.

Where I work, it's either the comprehensive plan or an HSA.

I avoid the HSA's like the plague.

so you're paying $2500-3000 per year for insurance whether you get sick or not.i pay about $35/month for a $6000 deductible, put $300/month in the HSA and pay all my medical bills out of that. I've been coming out ahead for the past 2 years i've been doing it that way.

But he said the best way to do that was with HSA's that could be passed on via inheritance, and that the government would still pay for the indigent. That sounds worse than what we already have. We need to get the free market as far away from healthcare as possible.

The only way any HSA money is passed on via inheritance is if the donor dies quickly. As with a bullet to the head. By an heir, perhaps. Really, most of the time, any amount of money devoted to healthcare at the end-of-life stage of a person will be used up.

HotWingConspiracy:Seems he went in to medicine because he's a complete retard on domestic policy.

"Instead of sending all this money to some bureaucracy, let's put it in their HSAs. Now they have some control over their own health care. And very quickly they're going to learn how to be responsible."

No, they'll learn what a con medical pricing is and their HSA will be wiped out by one trip to the doctor.

Anyone advocating HSA's as some magic responsibility creating vehicle just isn't very smart about people. Plus there are the optics of "my plan revolves around the idea that people need tax relief to afford Advil, and they should be happy with that" to consider.

HSA's are a good idea in theory in that they will force people to shop around and increase pricing pressure/competition. In reality most docters/medical providers can't even give you a straight answer on what something will cost until after the fact so the entire point of this is defeated.

If they want to lower medical costs a good start would be requiring all patients to preapprove charges in any non life threatening situations. Costs for common medical procedures must be disclosed on demand too. If I want to get an mri let me call every mri place in my city. None of this 'well our office works with this clinic, oh they can't tell you the cost until it goes through billing and billing can't tell you until they get the info from the doc after it is done? Good luck with your mystery bill' shiat.

But he said the best way to do that was with HSA's that could be passed on via inheritance, and that the government would still pay for the indigent. That sounds worse than what we already have. We need to get the free market as far away from healthcare as possible.

HSA's are worthless.

I'm in my mid-20's and even I don't have one because I'd rather have comprehensive insurance instead of taking a chance and having to pay out of pocket for my medical expenses if something bad were to happen to me.

Get a less expensive high-deductible plan and put the money you save into the HSA. Then if you have a good year where you don't get sick or see a dr more than a time or two, you're way ahead.

Where I work, it's either the comprehensive plan or an HSA.

I avoid the HSA's like the plague.

so you're paying $2500-3000 per year for insurance whether you get sick or not.i pay about $35/month for a $6000 deductible, put $300/month in the HSA and pay all my medical bills out of that. I've been coming out ahead for the past 2 years i've been doing it that way.

Like I said, it's all about risk and that's one thing I don't like to play with.

Basically, I'm gambling my life saying "I'm going to be healthy this year". Otherwise if something were to happen to be and my HSA wouldn't cover it, I'd be screwed.

They're utterly irrelevant. They're a way to control the costs of sniffle-n-backache vists (by making generally healthy people avoid going to the doctor for anything). Sadly, all the cases where HSAs/HDHPs have much effect add up to a rounding error in the 80% of health spending that's on cancer, heart attacks, strokes, major trauma, and end-stage kidney/cardio-pulmonary/etc. Things that are 'catastrophes' even with deductibles of $10,000 or more.

A'ight. You've convinced me. HSAs suck.

I see America as inevitably moving towards a single payer non employer based system in the long run and sorta thought of HSAs as a potentially helpful stop gap measure in that evolution but after further reflection it would most likely be a failed experiment that would ultimately hinder rather than help in that evolution.

k1j2b3:MacEnvy: So all the GOP needs to do to win is "black it up" a little? You morons, this is why you will continue to lose. You honestly think it's about race and not about policy. You epic failures of human beings.

No, we need to choose candidates like Dr. Carson, who can clearly state the conservative position and give simple, thought-provoking solutions to our problems. Also, I love how he pointed out how political correctness keeps good ideas out of the mix.

I am looking for a smart candidate with the ability to explain conservative ideas to Americans in plain English. I couldn't care less if he was white, black, hispanic or asian. Dr. Carson was a breath of fresh air.

Seriously, you do not want someone to explain conservative ideas in plain English. If people find out what conservatives actually espouse (I have no idea what they believe, I often suspect very little is the correct answer), it could be generations before you see another R in the big chair.

Fortunately for you, conservative media provides a pretty good filter.

Cheers

//Please don't bother blathering about liberal media, I'm not in the mood for bald assertions of bullshiat

Darth_Lukecash:jehovahs witness protection: We like the hell out of him, but people on the left HATE him because he isn't their expectations of what a black man should be. They are the racists. Anyone who disagrees with Obama is racist in liberals' eyes...even if they back another black person.

Nah, we hate him because he's GOP ignorant conservative - nothing to do with him being black.

Colin Powell had potential- then he screwed up with the Iraq war.

There was a time when I was sure Powell would be the first black president. Heck, I might have even voted for him.

To give you an idea, an SDA church I pass by on my way to & from work has this on their sign: If evolution were true, mothers would have four arms.

By the way, Ben Carson doesn't believe in, or seem to understand, evolution either: "I don't believe in evolution...evolution says that because there are these similarities, even though we can't specifically connect them, it proves that this is what happened."

slayer199:Still a member of the GOP and I didn't see him say much about his social policies. If he's a social moderate, the GOP establishment won't give him a shot...if he's a wacky social conservative, the electorate won't give him a shot.

If he is a devout Seventh-Day Adventist, he's probably a strong social conservative and creationist--coupled with vegetarianism. Would probably be our first vegetarian POTUS.

There is no way HSA can "work right". There is no way to properly price medical services. It just can't. When you're at death's door and there is a way to bring you back to full health, wouldn't you take it, regardless of the cost? What if it costs you $10,000 a month for medicine that you have to take for the rest of your life? What if it is $100,000? $1,000,000? Basically, there's no max because people don't have an alternative.

Insurance is one way to mitigate this by spreading the cost to various people as opposed to lumping all the cost on the individual. But that still doesn't prevent ballooning prices for medical services. This is why all of healthcare must be a non-profit driven industry and must be heavily regulated.

Perhaps I am overblowing it, but my thoughts go immediately to extravagantly wealthy individuals having yet another low-tax way to bequeath wealth to their progeny, the idea having zero other merits beyond "I've got mine, fark you."

WhyteRaven74:SomeoneDumb: I have no idea where they fit on the evangelical scale.

they're on the batshiat crazy side

While often not being accepted by Protestant Evangelicals as true Christians, because of their additional prophetic and inspirational works produced by their prophet Ellen G. White. They recently came around to Trinitarianism, but that's still controversial among some.

mongbiohazard:Likewise the GOP has a problem with the latino vote... so their solution is to make some noise about fixing our illegal/legal immigration mess with confidence that's going to get the latino votes. They don't even realize how condescending that sounds or how incomplete it is. They can only insist so many times that they're not racist before the denials start wearing thin - and that time was some time ago.

So apparently when actual hispanics decide to talk about immigration (Rubio, e.g.) it is still racist...if you are a conservative hispanic. I get it. Only liberal hispanics are 'real' hispanics.

Insurance is one way to mitigate this by spreading the cost to various people as opposed to lumping all the cost on the individual. But that still doesn't prevent ballooning prices for medical services. This is why all of healthcare must be a non-profit driven industry and must be heavily regulated.

Out of curiosity, can anyone think of any other heavily regulated and non-profit industry that isn't socialized (hate to break out the dirty word)? Or can anyone make an argument why a non-profit that has to be heavily regulated shouldn't be? I really hope I see single pay or socialized hc in my life time.

I see America as inevitably moving towards a single payer non employer based system in the long run and sorta thought of HSAs as a potentially helpful stop gap measure in that evolution but after further reflection it would most likely be a failed experiment that would ultimately hinder rather than help in that evolution.

They're a mix of suck and meh. Individually, they might be right for you. At my workplace, they offer a standard PPO and an HSA plan. With the hefty employer HSA funding, the HSA plan is alwayscomes out mathematically in your favor... whether you have ten forms of cancer or don't see a doc at all. Comes out really well in the latter case. Strangely, even though it's always better, 85% of employees stick with the standard plan.

So, I evangelize it in the concrete case. But, in the broad scope? It's not good. It doesn't bend the cost curve much, and tends to break down the "pooling" aspect that makes health insurance work at all.

Uzzah:Sergeant Grumbles: But this guy's plan is worse.Inheritable HSA's? I mean.... what the holy fark. Let's just drop the pretense that this is anything else but a way for the wealthy to further segregate themselves from those wretched poors.

It's a terrible idea for several reasons:

1. Doesn't do anything to require people to have healthcare. Half the population can't go without raiding their 401(k)s to buy flat-screen t.v.s and iPhones. What makes anybody think that the low-income people won't fund/borrow from (if possible) their HSAs, and choose to go without health insurance ... the same way they do now.

2. What steps are in place to make sure that insurance companies are offering coverage that will be affordable for those who have no resources other than the government subsidy? If the subsidy doesn't cover the cost of coverage, what good is it? If it does, but there's only one available option, how is that any different than the current Medicaid model?

3. "Personal responsibility" when it comes to healthcare is a largely bullshiat idea. If you give them the ability not to have insurance, some won't, whether it's out of income difficulties, disinterest, ennui, or whatever. But they'll still get sick/hurt anyway, and show up at the emergency room, just as they do now. Are we going to turn them away now because they've made bad choices to not have insurance that might have otherwise been available to them? How is this system really any different than what we have now, except that we're diverting more taxpayer dollars into private insurance companies?

k1j2b3:mongbiohazard:Likewise the GOP has a problem with the latino vote... so their solution is to make some noise about fixing our illegal/legal immigration mess with confidence that's going to get the latino votes. They don't even realize how condescending that sounds or how incomplete it is. They can only insist so many times that they're not racist before the denials start wearing thin - and that time was some time ago.

So apparently when actual hispanics decide to talk about immigration (Rubio, e.g.) it is still racist...if you are a conservative hispanic. I get it. Only liberal hispanics are 'real' hispanics.

Rubio probably isn't a racist, but his party and their financial backers are. He's a marketing gimmick.

Plus you need to consider how everyone that isn't Cuban feels about the sweetheart treatment that Cubans get in terms of immigration.

So HSAs have been working in Singapore for a while now. I personally worry about consumer fraud, failures of long term personal planning, and how the finical apparatus to actually save the money would work. That being said it's one of the more viable ways to address heath care problems, it a legitimate view.

A flat tax generally sucks, but he may have meant, or might be amenable to a consumption tax. Again there are some problems with a consumption tax, it's regressive at the very lowest income levels, but there are a few ways to address them - at least in theory. If he's for a consumption tax, that's also a viable view.

As long as he doesn't say anything about limiting contraception, a gold standard, or eliminating Social Security within the next 20 years, I'll listen. Nothing there is completely, irrevocably stupid.

That being said, I want to know about his plans for military spending, abortion, privacy and intellectual property. I want to know about his plans for immigration, torture, and long term energy. Since he doesn't have a policy background, I want to know who's on his team.

jehovahs witness protection:We like the hell out of him, but people on the left HATE him because he isn't their expectations of what a black man should be. They are the racists. Anyone who disagrees with Obama is racist in liberals' eyes...even if they back another black person.

Yep, liberals should support ALL black people BECAUSE they're black, even if they hear voices and cling to outdated Republican ideology.

Somacandra:SomeoneDumb: I have no idea where they fit on the evangelical scale.

While often not being accepted by Protestant Evangelicals as true Christians, because of their additional prophetic and inspirational works produced by their prophet Ellen G. White. They recently came around to Trinitarianism, but that's still controversial among some.

I think you all missed what the HSA idea was about. Instead of paying into Medicare our whole lives, that would be put into a personal HSA account. At least, that was the basic idea. Dr. Carson said that there was more detail to it than that, so he was just throwing out an idea.

I think this makes sense. It would be in lieu of health insurance. You spend in on medical needs as necessary throughout life. It would be up to the elderly person with a lot to spend in his HSA account, if he wanted that knee replacement at 90 or a quadruple bypass at 85, or if he'd rather not spend that money and pass it on to his family.

Now, I see do see a problem with this simplified explanation. What happens to the baby at 2 years old that needs heart surgery and doesn't have enough money in an HSA? I'd be curious to hear more about the whole idea.

People on this commenting board seem to think that if we do a new idea like this, that the system we have today will be the same one we are dealing with. The whole point is to create cheaper and smarter healthcare. I think I would trust a neurosurgeon who has spent more than 35 years in healthcare and insurance to know more than 99% of the commenters.